Page 28 of By A Thread
I picked up my fork and cut my last bite of chicken in half, hoping to make it last. I was beginning to get a few ideas about where Dalessandra had gone wrong.
“So, how come you’re poor?” Ruth asked cheerfully.
“It’s a long, long story,” I sighed.
I felt an arctic breeze skim down my spine and looked up.
Two tables down, Charming was glaring at me while pulling up a chair next to the Linus guy I’d met in Dalessandra’s office this morning. I returned his withering stare with a phony smile and a finger-wiggling wave.
“Girl, you are the bravest person I have ever met,” Gola whispered without moving her lips.
“Your vagina must be made out of steel,” Ruth guessed.
“Aren’t they all?” My phone timer buzzed, and I sighed. “Okay, ladies. Back to work.”
I was a planner by nature. Things got lost or went undone if there wasn’t a plan in place. Commitment to me meant doing what I said I was going to do.
I just happened to have to commit to a lot of things. So I planned. Ruthlessly. There were dozens of daily alerts scheduled in my phone.
Plan out week.
Choreograph dance class.
Leave for dance class.
Teach dance class.
Buy more ramen.
Leave for bar shift.
Start bar shift.
End bar shift.
Catch train home.
Send design invoices.
Make payment on astronomical debt.
Go the fuck to bed.
Wake the fuck up.
Do it all over again…
If I didn’t schedule every single task, it might fall off my plate and get kicked under some piece of metaphorical furniture only to be remembered months later in the middle of the night. And if someone was counting on me, I needed to deliver.
“Let’s get drinks after work tonight,” Ruth suggested. “I feel like we have so much more gossip to impart.”
I grinned, standing. “I can’t. There’s that whole I’m poor thing, and I’m working tonight.”
“You have a second job?” Gola asked.
“I have four second jobs.”
“Girl, you need a vacation.”
